Taliban Denies Role In Red Cross Attack

Afghans help a Red Cross member get away from the site of an attack in Jalalabad Province on May 29.

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Taliban Denies Role In Red Cross Attack

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A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan says the Taliban did not have any connection to a suicide attack on May 29 on a Red Cross office in Jalalabad.

Spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousaf Ahmadi says the Taliban would never support an attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Red Cross on May 31 announced it is temporarily suspending operations in Afghanistan after two armed men stormed the humanitarian group's Jalalabad compound.

One guard was killed and both attackers detonated suicide bombs.

Red Cross spokesman Hassib Rahimi told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the Red Cross is in talks with both the Afghan government and the Taliban to determine who was behind the attack -- the first on the Red Cross in Afghanistan since it began work there in 1987.

The ICRC employs some 1,800 people in Afghanistan, including 36 in Jalalabad.